In this itinerant sort of life I live, moving from place to place every few years, it becomes easy to put the specificity of places out of mind quickly. What I mean is this: I spend a few years getting to know an area, its history, landmarks, my favorite restaurants and stores and the quickest routes from point A to point B, and generally becoming a familiar citizen of these places. And then, some would say quite suddenly, poof!, I’m gone, off to a whole new existence (I’m aware I’m not the only person to have ever moved to a new area). It’s odd: once I’m in the new place, while some of the specifics of the former place may swirl on my periphery for a few days, they are largely completely tossed aside. Now, please mind this next sentence: I am not suggesting I forget the lovely people or experiences from these places. I’m thinking more about my favorite Chinese buffet in Erie, PA, a real shithole that I fell in love with when I visited it at first on a balmy summer day just a month or so after I moved there. I’d just visited the Erie Art Museum for the first time (my first trip to an art museum by myself) and I was laden with pamphlets I had picked up there. I sat at this shithole buffet for an hour, gorging on fried rice and realizing I loved art. I went to this buffet roughly one million times over the next year. It saw me get the fattest I’d ever been, and then slowly became an occasional guilty pleasure in the months before I moved away from Erie, as I was becoming slender and trying to avoid buffets. That Chinese buffet was one of just about 100 unique places I evolved for myself in the 2 years I lived in Erie; the places we choose to frequent and spend time in outside the house become an extension of our personalities and identities. I had places I liked to ride my bike, and stop my bike. Places I rented movies, and bought books, and places I read books. And then, in a decision made over the course of just a few weeks—I was gone, living with my mother in South Jersey. Now I haven’t thought of those places–places that made up bits of my identity–for months or a year.
When I landed in South Jersey, for a week or two, I felt like I inhabited many worlds. My new home was New Jersey, and I was excited to explore it. But my identity in Erie was a good one, and it was fading like a seen ghost. At the same time, I was working in Philadelphia—another aspect of identity. In all three places at once, I was developing, forgetting, or remembering the places I loved that were special to me.
Eventually, I made quite a few special places in South Jersey. A few antique shops that I liked to stop by all alone, browsing the musty wares, thumbing through the hundred-year-old postcards and selecting a few to buy each time. The record store, Tunes, out on the absolutely horrid Black Horse Pike, where I secreted away to about every two weeks, where I once found and bought a vinyl copy of Bruce Willis’ blues album, and where I rebuilt my collection of Radiohead CDs. I can still remember the taste of the incredibly overpriced cheesesteaks at King of Steaks on the main drag in Woodbury—with their three booths and cans of soda.
And then, in a decision again seemingly out of nowhere, I suddenly found myself living in Philadelphia. I was immediately in love with my new situation, and often still find myself chuckling as I walk along the street to my house in the afternoon, all alone listening to Death Cab for Cutie on my iPhone, and I look over my shoulder and see the skyline. What an adventure is my life, I think to myself. And although South Jersey and my identity there hung over my life like a disappearing ring of smoke for a few days, it didn’t take long for me to forget the Barnes and Noble out on Almonesson, despite having gone there 50 times in the last year and a half. I had new places replacing that one, and a new kind of identity forming with them, and down the road, these new ones will soon enough be replaced and forgotten, too.
This evening, as I was showering, I tasted one of those Woodbury cheesesteaks—I’m not sure why, but there it was—and I suddenly missed everything all at once.
What are your current places? What are some you’ve almost forgotten?
There’s a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes;
I threw them to the sea,
but a gust blew them backwards
and now the sting in my eyes—
that you then inflicted—
was par for the course
just as when you were living.
It’s no stretch to say you were not quite a father
but the donor of seeds to a poor single mother
that would raise us alone—
we never saw the money—
that went down your throat
through the hole in your belly.
Thirteen years old in the suburbs of Denver,
standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner
at the Catholic church
(the servers wore crosses
to shield from the sufferance
plaguing the others).
Styrofoam plates, cafeteria tables,
charity reeks of cheap wine and pity
and I’m thinking of you,
I do every year when we count all our blessings
and wonder what we’re doing here.
You’re a disgrace to the concept of family.
The priest won’t divulge that fact in his homily
and I’ll stand up and scream
(the mourning remain quiet) you can deck out a lie in a suit, but I won’t buy it.
I won’t join the procession that’s speaking their piece,
using five dollar words while praising his integrity.
Just ’cause he’s gone, it doesn’t change that fact:
he was bastard in life, thus a bastard in death!
Well well fair blog readers, it is time once again for my year-end favorite music list. Unlike in years past, this will be the only year-end list here on Notes From the Fire, as I simply haven’t been paying enough attention to anything else to make a decent list.
If you’d like to go back in time, here are links to previous years’ lists:
There were two years of lists before these, but they were on my MySpace blog, which has mysteriously disappeared. As usual, a mix disc representative of this blog has been made and will be automatically sent to those of you on my “mailing list”; if you aren’t and you want to be, contact me!
All music on this list was released in calendar year 2012. The list itself is limited to only full-length albums, but there are some runners-up after the list by artists that either didn’t release full-length albums, or whose album sucked, but since this is literally a list of my “favorite music” released this year, it seemed silly to continue limiting it to only full albums. Now: the list!
10. Benjamin Gibbard, “Former Lives”
Death Cab for Cutie frontman Gibbard unleashed his first solo effort this year, and of course, it sounds and feels a lot like Death Cab, but lyrically, the album sticks solely to relationships (mostly romantic, but occasionally musing on friendship, too) and never veers onto some of the larger topics Death Cab albums often deal with. A highlight is Gibbard’s duet with Aimee Mann on “Bigger Than Love“.
9. Delta Spirit, “Delta Spirit”
The California indie rocker’s, on their second album, grow and evolve from the raw, straight-ahead power they used on 2010’s “History From Below” into a band with more textured, layered sublety, while still retaining their ability to outright gut-punch their listeners.
8. Alabama Shakes, “Boys and Girls”
The Shakes have spearheaded a new movement of indie Americana, and nobody is going to do it better than they do. They’re not writing songs for the radio. There are no enormous, sweeping, soundtrack-ready singalong choruses (hello there, annoying second chapter of the Mumford and Sons story), just genuine feeling and the ache of living and working in an America that doesn’t notice you.
7. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, “Psychedelic Pill”
Young and Crazy Horse had quite a year this year, putting out an album of covers, as well as this album, their first new original music together in many, many years. And it did not disappoint. A double-disc album, it only has eight songs on it, as these crunchy blasts of feedback perfection keep stretching over the 20 minute mark. Not to be missed if you’ve ever been a fan of what Young and Crazy Horse do together.
6. El Ten Eleven, “Transitions”
Practitioners of the dark art of Post-Rock, this duo uses live looping to replicate their large sound in the live setting. This year’s album, “Transitions”, found them reaching even further toward the epic, big-idea tomes their genre-mates usually turn out, although they still often give their songs goofy titles, like “Thanks Bill“.
5. Public Enemy, “The Evil Empire of Everything”
I know what you’re saying! “Rap?!” Well, yes. Way back in the day when I was solely into rap (ie, high school) Public Enemy was one of my favorite acts. Chuck D is an amazing lyricist and they are very hard-hitting musically. A review in a magazine prompted me to check out this new album, and I was instantly smitten. Their music is, in fact, closer to “rock” than most hip hop acts, and Chuck’s radical social conscious speaks to my ever-more-liberal than last year ideals. But warning: this dude is more liberal than you are (whoever you are), and if you have a problem with a black dude still accusing the white establishment of fucking with black folks (which definitely still happens, black president or not) then you should stay away from Public Enemy (and enjoy your Kenny Chesney concert).
4. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, “Americana”
The first album Young and Crazy Horse put out this year, “Americana” is a collection of classic American folk songs, re-written in gritty, in-your-face grunge style that goes great lengths of changing (or in some cases, re-enforcing) how we view these songs we’ve all heard hundreds of times. Read more about it and stream the entire album here.
3. Emily Wells, “Mama”
Emily Wells, a solo artist who utilizes live looping much like El Ten Eleven, writes haunting, unconventional visions of angst and longing, but on this year’s “Mama” she took things a step further by writing flat-out stunning poetry for lyrics. On previous albums she had always witten very effective, affecting songs, but on “Mama” she gets subtle, roundabout, and mysterious while keeping things just within reach of accesibility. If she continues to evolve at this rate her next album will cement her status as a cult hero.
2. Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!”
Aside from perhaps classical and some jazz, there is absolutely nothing more serious in the world of music than Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Do not approach this band if you are not capable of listening to music to ponder your absolute and complete reason for existence. And to explore where the line between perfect joy and utter despiar lies. The godfathers (and godmothers) of post-rock, Godspeed hadn’t released an album in 10 years, and speculation had asserted they probably were not going to. So when “‘Allelujah” was announced, it sent shockwaves through the post-rock community, with most people assuming no album they could release would possibly be able to live up to expectations. But they proved everyone wrong. The album came out to almost universal acclaim. Most people are actually somewhat baffled by the post-rock perfection that goes on here, and how, after 5 of their own albums and countless (truly, countless) copycat bands, Godspeed is somehow still able to surprise us and find new, truly incredible ways to make this kind of music. Also, having purchased the album on vinyl, I have a code for a free download of this album that I will pass along to the first person who asks for it.
1. Band of Horses, “Mirage Rock”
Over the course of the last few years, Band of Horses have come to the forefront of my music-listening life (although I hesitate to crown them my “favorite band”, as other bands might be more at the forefront if they’d been on the same album release and tour schedule as Band of Horses). The band’s sound, the lyrical content and the overall subject matter of the songs, and even all the albums’ packaging (every album so far has come with a packet of photographs that don’t say anything on them and are just assumed to be a visual accompaniment to the music) steers me to this band. This year’s “Mirage Rock” only ramped up this enjoyment all the more. Songs like “Slow Cruel Hands of Time” seem to not only be about my own feelings, but practically a plot-specific memoir of my life. For the last six months, “Mirage Rock” has been a steady and constant companion, the true soundtrack to my life, and as such, it gets this year’s number one spot!
Runner-up songs:
Imagine Dragons, “Radioactive”
Bruce Springsteen, “We Take Care of Our Own”
Gary Clark Jr., “When My Train Pulls In”
GROUPLOVE, “Itchin’ on a Photograph”
Silversun Pickups, “Skin Graph”
Grizzly Bear, “Yet Again”
Kaiser Chiefs, “Little Shocks”
Mogwai, “San Pedro”
Hey Rosetta!, “New Year Song”
Click here to read about this list, or click here to see all previous entires on the list.
And my 45th favorite song of all-time is:
“Two-Fifty” by Chris Walla
Chris Walla is the absolute genius guitar player and indie rock producer who is the lead guitarist for Death Cab for Cutie, and who produces such heavy hitters as The Decemberists and Tegan & Sara. He has released one solo album, Field Manual, and “Two-Fifty” is the standout track on it. It is a song about how the Industrial Revolution has altered the role of the individual in society. That’s right. That’s what it’s about. But it is a tender, reflective, subtle song, that more mourns for a loss of what once was, than is enraged by the inevitability of what has become. The video below is a video I made and put on YouTube because it wasn’t on there any other way (and still isn’t)…the video includes the lyrics, which are crucial. PS aren’t I clever, using the famous photo of a child worker in the Industrial Revolution before child labor laws, as the background for my video? PSS I realize this song, which uses a video I put on YouTube myself, comes right after “Easy Money”, another video I put on YouTube myself, but it is just coincidence.
(note: I wrote this entry about 4 or 5 months ago. Isn’t it interesting how it ties in so perfectly with my life right now??)
I not only love this song because it’s an amazing song, but for the time in my life that it evokes in my memories. First, about the song:
It has pretty much established most of my thoughts about “new years”, as we call it in this culture, and things like resolutions…all the kinds of shit I bitch about starting around December 28th. Like most of what Ben Gibbard writes, every word is absolutely perfect, the meaning is intensely conveyed and no word is ornamental or extra. The pulsing, undulating chords of the music reflect the solemnity of the lyrics, and the desperate yearning of the final repitition…”there’d be no distance that could hold us back” reeks of the honestly of a man who knows the past is unreachable.
I bought the album this song is on (Transatlantisicm) a few weeks before I got hired in my current job as a manager for a restaurant company. This was a major step up for me. This was also shortly after I’d bought my first-ever brand-new car. This was a banner time in my life, a life which had only recently come back from the very brink. Musically, I was just starting to branch out into “indie” music, an area of music I knew I wanted to be a part of but hadn’t yet figured out my entry point.
So anyway, I bought this Death Cab for Cutie album right before my company sent me to Pittsburgh for two weeks for training classes. They put us up in a hotel that was about a ten minute drive from the corporate office, so every morning, bright and early, in this brand new car and in this amazing brand new life, I would find myself driving through early-morning Pittsburgh as this album played. “The New Year” is the first track on the CD, so I heard it often (and often had it on repeat). It was a truly magical time, and this song takes me back there. Also, fuck resolutions.
So this is the new year,
and i don’t feel any different.
The clanking of crystal,
explosions off in the distance.
So this is the new year
and I have no resolutions.
They’re self-assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions.
So everybody put your best suit or dress on.
Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once,
lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogues bleed into one.
I wish the world was flat like the old days
and I could travel just by folding a map.
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways.
There’d be no distance that could hold us back.
I took some video at the very beginning of tonight’s snow storm; most of it is in such low light conditions, it’s hard to see just how much snow is coming down and how fast. It’s a very fine snow and it’s moving 30-40mph, but my camera isn’t really built for the conditions. A lot of the time, when the camera is not facing a light source, you actually don’t see the snow, but I assure you, it is there. And in the shots where I show my feet in the snow, remember, ten minutes before, there was NO snow at all. Really though, I’ve just been obsessed with Death Cab For Cutie’s song “The New Year” this week and felt compelled to make SOME sort of video to it on New Year’s Day.
Yep, it’s that time of year again: time for my self-important yet entirely meaningless year-end lists. This year will feature three lists: music, movies, and a miscellany list like this one from last year. We start out with the music list.
Boy-howdy, this was a crowded year of music for me! I would estimate that well over 50% of musical artists that I am passionate about had a release of some kind this year. At one point, it actually just seemed like too much. I wasn’t able to give my full attention to some albums, as they were coming too fast for me to keep up with. (one casualty of this may have been the new Cold War Kids album, which I did not like, but it was sandwiched between a lot of other releases. This year marks the first CWK album to not make my list. Also, The Decemberists released TWO albums this year and I found them both snooze-ville). There even, unfortunately, remain some releases I’d love to hear but I just don’t have the time or attention span to squeeze them in (new albums from Deer Tick, Tegan and Sara, Arctic Monkeys, and a live Sigur Ros release are among the 2011 recordings that will have to wait until 2012 in the Seth household). So it is with all this in consideration that I admit to being such a pansy when making this list, I absolutely had to expand my rankings from the 15 slots of last year, to 20 slots this year. That’s right; not only could I not narrow it down to 10, I couldn’t even narrow it down to 15. Give me a break. I don’t get paid for this.
Also new this year, I have included “post rock” bands in my listing. (for a description of the genre, click the link) In years past I have left them off my list, as the style only appeals to a small group of people, but the genre has become such a large part of my listening life, I could not in good faith leave them off my lists any longer. There were two new albums from two of the heaviest hitters in the genre this year, and they’re both fantastic examples of the post rock game (at number 6 and 13 on my list).
As always, a mix disc chronicling my list will be sent out automatically to folks on my “mailing list”. It will only feature songs from the top 15 on the list, however, due to the inherent limitations of the compact disc. (if you’re on my mailing list, you know you are. Although I typically don’t send the mix discs to my parents, who are otherwise on the mailing list. So, Mom and Dad, if you want one of these, let me know!) If you are not on the mailing list and would like on it, just let me know via whatever method you and I usually use to communicate. But if you want in on the mix disc, let me know ASAP, I’ll be mailing them out soon.
Also, bear in mind (to prevent silly mean-spirited arguments that would prove you know nothing about art) this list is meant to represent my favorite music of the year, not my notion of “the best” music of the year. You cannot argue with what was my “favorite”. And so, without further ado, my top 20 musical releases of calendar year 2011:
20. Radiohead, The King of Limbs
19. St. Vincent, Strange Mercy
18. Iron & Wine, Kiss Each Other Clean
17. Wavves, Life Sux
16. Drive-By Truckers, Go-Go Boots
15. Florence + The Machine, Ceremonials I was slow to the party with this band, but I’m now firmly on Team Florence. The lead single, “What the Water Gave Me”, will make you happy to be alive.
14. Young the Giant, Young the Giant One of the best debut albums I’ve ever heard. I can’t wait to see where these guys go as they get their artistic feet under them.
13. Mogwai, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will Mogwai has always been further down my list of Post Rock bands than they are for most; I tend to find them too flippant in a genre that is typically super-serious. But this album blew my socks off; it is harder and more in-your-face than most Post Rock, while maintaining the necessary pretentious artiness that makes my hat fly off.
12. Indigo Girls, Beauty Queen Sister I continue to have no idea why the world at large insists Indigo Girls are only for sappy women or butch lesbians. If perfectly-crafted, heartfelt songs about the most intense mysteries of the human condition (with amazing harmony!) are for butch lesbians, then schedule my appointment with a surgeon. This album proves the ladies can and will keep making compelling music for much longer than most songwriters are able to.
11. The Trews, Hope & Ruin The bar-rock Canadians from my 2009 list make a triumphant return! This album falls short of the majestic magnificence of 2009’s No Time for Later, but contains at least two songs that made me get out of my seat the first time I heard them (“People of the Deer” is a straight-up Earth-scorcher).
10. Real Estate, Days
This Jersey quartet is often accused of being a tad “sleepy” or intentionally understated, but ever since I saw them open for Deerhunter last winter, I’ve been a convert to their introspective, trance-like style of shoegaze rock. Here is the outro to “Wonder Years”, off their superb album from this year, Days:
9. TV on the Radio, Nine Types of Light Certainly the most anticipated art rock release of the year, following their spectacular 2008 album Dear Science, many people were afraid we’d never get another TVoTR album after they announced a “hiatus” in 2009. Then, in early 2011, they announced Nine Types of Light, and almost immediately thereafter, bassist Gerard Smith was diagnosed with lung cancer and promptly died. Needless to say, the touring and promotion for the album was all quite bittersweet; but in the end, the album is a huge testament to this band’s power: soaring, soulful and at times, relentlessly rocking.
8. Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues
Nothing brings me closer to full-on hipster status than my affinity for Fleet Foxes. As my tastes evolve from ultra-modern, hyper rock to a more toned-down, Americana fusion, no band epitomizes my own evolution better than this band. Stopping short of “country” but straying far from “rock”, the Foxes make me see and smell the Appalachian mountains of back home with every note. A friend of mine once gave as his reason for disliking Fleet Foxes as “it’s like church songs for hipsters”, and I thought to myself that sounded like exactly why I do like them. And it doesn’t hurt that on Helplessness Blues, frontman Robin Pecknold seems to have been singing from inside my own skull. “So now I am older than my mother and father when they had their daughter…what does that say about me?”
7. The Airborne Toxic Event, All at Once
Just watch this from start to finish and tell me it didn’t change your life:
6. Explosions in the Sky, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
The other “post rock” band on my list, they could also arguably be called the most commercially successful (they did the theme song for the TV show “Friday Night Lights”, which is one thousand times more mainstream exposure than any other post rock band). Happily, with their first new album since their profile increased, they did not make simpler, more straight-forward songs for “the masses”. Take Care, Take Care, Take Care is probably their most challenging album to date, while maintaining the heightened level of spiritual raw emotion that has always made them impossible to ignore. The ten minute album closer, “Let Me Back In”, although wordless, is a dirge-like cry of sadness for a lost love, reaching a level of thematic complexity that is new for a band that occasionally relies on bombast. And if this CD doesn’t win the Grammy for album packaging, there is a serious problem (yes, they give Grammys for that…just not on television).
5. Wilco, The Whole Love
I’m a relatively new convert to Wilco. Despite them being constantly talked about in the same breath as a lot of bands I adored, I resisted them because of the label “alt-country”, but it turns out, in the last few years, that label started sounding attractive to me. So I started trying them out (and it turns out that “alt-country” is totally meaningless, anyway). Then this year’s The Whole Love came out, and I was totally blown away. Few albums—of any genre—contain so many varying styles of music and so much depth of feeling and subtextual meaning. Check this performance on Letterman from this year, of the album’s lead track, “The Art of Almost”:
4. Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What
Paul Simon has always been one of those songwriters who I knew I loved, but I always stopped short of being an active fan (buying albums, listing him among my favorites, etc). But when one of his songs came on, I was always rapt. (honestly, I like his solo work about 100 times more than his stuff with Garfunkle). But this year, as he released an new album, he did a promotional blitz that managed to work perfectly on me. First, there was this extraordinary appearance on Jimmy Fallon, followed by appearances playing songs from his new album on just about every talk show I tuned into for a week or two. And I just fell totally in love with these songs. Musically they are low-key but extremely inventive, and like most Simon songs, they really shine lyrically. They aren’t the straight-forward, heart-on-sleeve urgent missives that he wrote in his most productive years, but rather, these songs are complex, surprising, bold lyrical poetry that could just as easily be studied in a textbook as played on Jimmy Fallon. I know that’s not necessarily a ringing endorsement for a lot of people—too much thinking, perhaps—but it seems like magic to me. Plenty of songwriters at this stage in Simon’s career are just falling back on old formulas (if they’re making new music at all), but Simon is challenging himself and his audience. “Rewrite” examines the regrets one might have with old age, but through the lens of an artist who can craft how the world views them. It seems like a song Bob Dylan would write if he stopped worrying so much about writing like Bob Dylan. Album-closer and title song “So Beautiful or So What” poses some of the most complicated questions associated with making art—is something art just because it’s beautiful? Or conversely, does beauty DISQUALIFY something from being art? And how important is it if art is good, if the artist is enjoying creating it?
3. My Morning Jacket, Circuital MMJ continues to be the most mystifying, chameleon-esque, dynamic band out there today. Are they space funk? Jazz fusion? Heavy metal? Even they don’t know. To be an MMJ fan is to be a fan of rock in general as well as this band’s unusual mystique. Circuital easily ranks as my second favorite MMJ album (It Still Moves remains firmly in first). Here is a video from the show I attended on this year’s tour. I was front row, directly in front of Jim (the singer)…the song is “You Wanna Freak Out”, from Circuital:
2. Death Cab For Cutie, Codes and Keys
On first listen, I was afraid Codes and Keys was the album where DCFC had started sucking. Nothing caught my attention, and the lyrics sounded suspiciously like Ben Gibbard had given in to writing songs specifically to sound “Gibbard-y” (although it is a testament to his songwriting prowess that nobody familiar with his songwriting would fault me for making it an adjective). But then, a few months after it came out, it clicked. And then I remembered that is how every Death Cab for Cutie album has always been for me. They simply do not pop out at you and declare their presence immediately. It may sound dramatic, but I’m gonna say it like this anyway: Death Cab songs contain universes, and sometimes these multi-layered, subtle, textured universes reveal themselves slowly, bit-by-bit, and sometimes, over the course of years. (every year I find myself re-amazed in new ways by their album Plans. I suspect DCFC fans will know what I mean when I say I just now *got* the song “Summer Skin”). If there is a criticism to be leveled at the band, it is that these encodings (ha! see how that applies to this album’s title?) and hidden universes can often obscure a listener’s personal attachment to a song. I love the DCFC classic “Amputations” because I finally see how it’s looping, counter-acting guitar structure helps to inform the subject matter of lovers who consistently return to a poison relationship that is never going to work. But I don’t love it, necessarily, because it’s important to me.
But once Codes and Keys clicked for me, it did become important to me. Still around are the intricate, hidden gems of musical structure and lyrical content so slick it disguises itself as ordinary, but under that veneer are some of the most prescient, precious conceptual leaps in modern rock and roll. Frontman Ben Gibbard surely knows that each word he writes will be picked over and analyzed by finger-wagging hipsters (on whom he relies for paychecks), yet he’s not scared to write an essentially atheist screed in “St. Paul’s Cathedral”: “When our hearts stop ticking/ this is the end/ there’s nothing past this.” I was actually one of the first to put this song up on YouTube. You can see my little video here. I also found myself delightedly surprised, upon returning to the album after initially dismissing it, to find that the title track had a nearly-hidden crescendo at the end, in a little bit of musical trickery it somehow hid itself rather cleverly at first. Now, when I listen to “Codes and Keys” (the song) I am physically and emotionally moved to a point of near-ridiculousness by the final 2 minutes. Anyone who is trying to get into DCFC, or is skeptical but interested, all I can suggest is that you give it some time to sink in. No other band will more richly reward a patient listener.
1. Hey Rosetta!, Seeds
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever read my blog that my favoritest band in the world of all time and forever would get the #1 spot this year. I’ve written nearly ad infinitum about this band, so I won’t waste time going back over why I adore them so much. If you’re new to my blog, scroll up to the tag cloud on the right and click on the Hey Rosetta! tag, which will take you to a plethora of gushing fanboy raves about them. Seeds, their third album, for me ranks squarely as their second best album, but it would take, as far as I can calculate, a literal act of God for any artist to top their previous album, Into Your Lungs (and Around in Your Heart and on Through Your Blood). As far as follow-ups go, Seeds delivers, with enough emotional peaks, insane tempo changes, and heartfelt epiphanies to last two more years, when hopefully the world will have it’s fourth Hey Rosetta! album.
There are many high-points on Seeds, both emotionally and musically, and somehow, nestled in there and almost hidden is the gem “Yer Fall”, which admittedly is not the standout on the album, but after seeing them live in support of this album five times, I can confidently tell you this slow-builder is certainly the live centerpiece (even though it doesn’t get played every show). I’ve posted a video of it below, and if you watch just one of the videos on this page, I implore you to make it this one. Please stick with it to the end; after multiple tempo changes, the song builds to an emotional climax that, even now as I was searching for the best video to post of it, makes me weep. It ends on a stark note, as most of the band sings with Tim, the lead singer, “My love is dead. I buried it.” This video doesn’t even do justice to what I saw on the road this year. In the small clubs, each member of the band loudly sings the final lines into any microphone they can find; the result was an incredible cacophony of intense raw emotion:
And it came to me then,
that every plan
is a tiny prayer to Father Time,
As I stared at my shoes
in the ICU
that reeked of piss and 409.
And I rationed my breaths
as I said to myself
that I’d already taken too much today.
As each descending peak
on the LCD
took you a little farther away from me.
Amongst the vending machines
and year-old magazines
in a place where we only say goodbye,
it stung like a violent wind
that our memories depend
on a faulty camera in our minds.
But I knew that you were a truth
I would rather lose
than to have never lain beside at all.
And I looked around
at all the eyes on the ground,
as the TV entertained itself.
‘Cause there’s no comfort in the waiting room,
just nervous pacers bracing for bad news.
And then the nurse comes round
and everyone will lift their heads.
But I’m thinking of what Sarah said,
that love is watching someone die.
I’m gonna put my cynic hat on here and say that I just really don’t *get* what is often referred to as “New Years” (despite there only being one of them).
You may be saying to yourself something like, This is probably because you’re a recovering alcoholic and New Years is all about drinking, and I say to you that even as a drinker, I didn’t *get* New Years. In fact, I never really understood any of the “drinking” holidays, a la St. Patty’s, Cinco de Mayo, etc. That may be because I was drunk every day, but still. I don’t get them.
In addition, the New Year’s Eve parties I have been to were exactly like every other party I had ever been to, begging the question, what makes this a New Year’s Eve party? And that ball dropping in Times Square? The same every year, and those people crammed into that cold place always look like they’re trying really hard to deny they’re bored. And cold.
I suppose the main point here is that folks use “New Years”—which I suppose encompasses New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day—as a marker of time’s movement, and as a way to metaphorically “wipe the slate clean” with a fresh start, as well as reflecting on the passing year. And I suppose that any such heady material undertaken on a mass basis is probably a good thing. But that’s just not the way I personally function. I think the idea of a (basically) arbitrary date being used to reflect, start anew, celebrate and generally ponder the state of your life is, well…arbitrary. I don’t know about you, but I do these things more frequently than once a year. They happen organically, and I take keen note of them as they happen. “New beginnings” happen when…well, when things begin, not with some date. I reflect on the passing markers of time in my life when…well, when they pass. Reflection, introspection, and the subsequent celebrations of the positive or changes to correct the negatives are an ongoing part of my life (don’t get me started on the phony uselessness of New Years Resolutions). I suspect that most people are like me, like I just described. Yet we continue to pretend that turning over this new calendar is somehow a useful, important, symbolic moment for us. And I’m sorry to sound cynical, but it just isn’t.
I do not see the need to be nudged into contemplation and celebration by a date.
(I guess I must be a tad cynical to type out such a blog, but I thought…why not actually type what I’m thinking? I never claimed to be an over-the-top optimist. Sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m sad. As the great Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes.” )
Also, here is an amazing song by Death Cab For Cutie called “The New Year”, which contains both my cynical feelings about the day itself, and my feelings that life, in general, is completely amazing:
The New Year by Death Cab For Cutie
So this is the new year,
and i don’t feel any different.
The clanking of crystal,
explosions off in the distance.
So this is the new year
and I have no resolutions.
No self-assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions.
So everybody put your best suit or dress on.
Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once.
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogs bleed into one.
I wish the world was flat like the old days,
and I could travel just by folding a map.
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways.
There’d be no distance that could hold us back.
I’ve got a cupboard with cans of food,
filtered water, and pictures of you
and I’m not coming out until this is all over.
And I’m looking through the glass
where the light bends at the cracks
and I’m screaming at the top of my lungs,
pretending the echoes belong to someone,
someone I used to know.
And we become silhouettes when our bodies finally go.
I wanted to walk through the empty streets
and feel something constant under my feet,
but all the news reports recommended that I stay indoors,
because the air outside will make
our cells divide at an alarming rate
until our shells simply cannot hold
all our insides in
and that’s when we’ll explode
(and it won’t be a pretty sight).
And we’ll become silhouettes when our bodies finally go.
So, let me stop you before you post the comment…no, I do NOT have “too much time on my hands”! This is just what I decided to do with the time on my hands!
OK, with that out of the way…yes, you are not reading that wrong. I have in fact ranked my one hundred favorite bands in descending order. You may ask…why, and how?
Well, I’ve just always been curious how my favorite bands would rank if I spent the time to do it. I mean, I pretty much knew what 1,2 and 3 would be, but after that, it was a bit hazy. So I figured I’d devise a way to rank the top 50. I brainstormed my favorite bands randomly, and when I counted the brainstorm results, there were seventy-some, so I figured I’d shoot for the stars and go for the top hundred.
I also figured I needed a way to narrow down who I could use. The only criteria was they had to be bands, not just musical artists. No solo artists or R&B groups. This meant I could use Neil Young and Crazy Horse, but not Neil Young.
This is the method I used for ranking them: I thought about a desert island situation, and then I thought, If I could only take one album from these bands, which band do I choose? I didn’t spend any time pondering WHICH album it would be, just…which band would I want an album from? Then after a band was chosen, I crossed them off and asked myself the desert island question again, but now had to choose from the remaining bands. When thinking about Neil Young and Crazy Horse (or, say, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) I only allowed myself to consider the work of the collaboration. So, I could have Everyone Knows This is Nowhere, but not After the Gold Rush.
Now, I am open to the fact that I may have missed something and may have to revise this list, so please, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts, but remember, this is not a best list, but a favorite list, so you can’t really argue with the list, but I am actually afraid I forgot something, so please point out anything that seems amiss. (But for the record, I did NOT forget: Tool, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Led Zeppelin, or The White Stripes—I just don’t like them all that much. And post-rock fans: I didn’t forget A Silver Mt. Zion, Surface of Eceyon, or Mono. Just not my favorites).
I hear you….why should you care? Well, you shouldn’t care about mine, necessarily, but may I suggest you do something like this yourself? It’s more interesting than you may think. You can discern changes in yourself by analyzing your list. For instance, 15 years ago, Dave Matthews Band would have been in my top 5. Now, they’re 41. What would they have been 8 years ago? 25? So they’re on a slow slide. Does this have something to say about changes in me beyond simple musical taste? I’m not sure, but it’s fun to think about. And some bands will pop into and out of my life quickly, as I’m constantly on the prowl for new music. It’s intriguing to look at this list and wonder which bands will soon not make this list, and which bands that are currently in the 80s or 90s will be in the top 20 next year. It’s certainly not a concrete list, I’m sure it is in constant flux.
Oh, and here’s a fun thing: you’ll see it appears to be a list of 101 bands. That’s because one of them is a fake band name, made up by me, right now. If you are the first to identify which of them is the fake, I’ll send you a prize!! And it will be a real prize, not some mix disc I made or something. Good luck!
I’ve also linked to a few bands here or there, to some interesting or awesome song, video, or website, if you ever find yourself terribly bored with extra time on your hands.
Without further ado, the list:
101. MGMT
100. I’m From Barcelona
99. Oppenheimer
98. Invert
97. Constantines
96. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
95. Mother Mother
94. Hollerado
93. We vs. Death
92. Interpol
91. I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness
90. Thursday
89. Stone Temple Pilots
88. Mooney Suzuki
87. Razorlight
86. The Great Depression
85. The Two Koreas
84. The Mercury Project
83. Tea Leaf Green
82. This Will Destroy You
81. Iron & Wine
80. Band of Horses
79. The Stills
78. Jefferson Airplane
77. Monsterpants
76. The Walkmen
75. Drive-By Truckers
74. Black Mountain
73. Pelican
72. Animal Collective
71. dd/mm/yyyy
70. Cage the Elephant
69. We are Scientists
68. TV on the Radio
67. Tegan and Sara
66. Yeasayer
65. Editors
64. The National
63. Islands
62. Library Voices
61. Caribou
60. Stars
59. Grizzly Bear
58. The Presidents of the United States of America
57. Fuel
56. Low
55. The Talking Heads
54. The Hold Steady
53. Kaiser Chiefs
52. Mogwai
51. Arctic Monkeys
50. Bush
49. Franz Ferdinand
48. Do Make Say Think
47. Jets Overhead
46. The Ghost is Dancing
45. Architecture in Helsinki
44. Fire on Fire
43. The Emily Wells Trio
42. Creedence Clearwater Revival
41. Dave Matthews Band
40. The Shins
39. Deerhunter
38. Primitive Radio Gods
37. Barenaked Ladies
36. Nirvana
35. Sven Gali
34. The Trews
33. The Cribs
32. Doves
31. The Cape May
30. Man Man
29. Indigo Girls
28. Sigur Ros
27. Neil Young and Crazy Horse
26. The Violent Femmes
25. Grinderman
24. Rage Against the Machine
23. The Postal Service
22. Fleet Foxes
21. Kings of Leon
20. The Frames
19. Cold War Kids
18. Silversun Pickups
17. The Airborne Toxic Event
16. Modest Mouse
15. Hey Rosetta!
14. The Decemberists
13. My Morning Jacket
12. Phish
11. Pink Floyd
10. Godspeed You Black Emperor!
9. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
8. Radiohead
7. The Arcade Fire
6. Explosions in the Sky
5. LIVE
4. Death Cab For Cutie
3. The Beatles
2. Seven Mary Three
1. Pearl Jam
You probably feel one of two ways about the Death Cab For Cutie song “The New Year”: you’ve either never heard it, or you think it’s over-played. Regardless, this time every year I naturally think about the song, which I consider to be one of the most poetic, succinct rock songs out there. Whether we are talking about lyrics or poetry or something else entirely, Ben Gibbard’s words for “The New Year” are a shining example of sparsity well used, and the band’s music states the perfect counterpoint to the theme. Here are the words and then some badass YouTube videos (some live versions and the official video):
The New Year
words by Ben Gibbard
So this is the new year,
and I don’t feel any different–
the clanking of crystal,
explosions off in the distance.
So this is the new year
and I have no resolutions.
They’re self assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions.
So everybody put your best suit or dress on,
let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once.
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogues bleed into one.
I wish the world was flat like the old days
and I could travel just by folding a map.
No more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways:
there’d be no distance that could hold us back.
Here’s the official music video:
Here’s a clip of a great performance of the song, but the YouTube video quality sucks:
See this needle? See my hand? Drop, drop, droppin’
it down, oh-so-gently!
–“Spin the Black Circle”, Pearl Jam
I don’t think I’ll ever buy an iPod (but don’t quote me on that). I have been a stickler for practical media (read: physical) ever since this fascination with ghost media (read: intangible) began over a decade ago. I have stood hard and fast by the Compact Disc, wagged judgemental fingers at illegal movie downloaders, and I even still have my VCR (albeit in my closet). There are enough people in the world on my side, vocally complaining about how important it is to have something after you buy something; how integral to the experience it is to own an actual physical product. And, for many years, I was echoing their sentiment, especially when it came to music: I like to read the liner notes, I like to look at the artwork, I like the heft of a full book of CDs, etc etc. But now I’m changing my tune…but just a little.
Over the years, whenever I would give this speil to an iPod-wearing, Zune-toting, MP3-adoring hipster, there was always a little thing in the back of my mind, a counter-argument I always hoped nobody would make (and nobody ever had) and that argument is this:
Well, I guess it’s not just about the music for you, is it then, if you want all these products?
If any of those ear-budded hipsters had had the presence of mind to say that to me, I’d have been dumbfounded as to how to respond, because of course it’s all about the music! Only…how could it be just about the music, if I needed non-music physical bodies to complete my enjoyment?
Then, about six months ago, I hopped onto this micro-trend of buying a record player. There’s a small but powerful contingent of anti-iPodists out there who are intentionally regressing in medium, and it’s a powerful enough movement that we’re now at a place where just about every new musical release of any importance is getting released in vinyl, though you’ve got to drive far (unless you’re in a city or really cool place) or order from Amazon if you want the vinyl. What I thought might be a lark has changed the way I’m thinking about not only music, but all art. And, folks, it’s quite a transcendental capitalism.
My truly beautiful, marble red, vinyl-only release of Modest Mouse's "History Sticks to Your Feet"
Pull it out, a paper sleeve…
Oh, my joy…only you deserve conceit!
—“Spin the Black Circle”, Pearl Jam
The first time I pulled the new Death Cab For Cutie album, Narrow Stairs, out of it’s paper sleeve, while looking at the sprawling, cubist, wordless bi-fold art in the center of the case, I knew right then and there that it wasn’t–and had never been–all about the music. Maybe it is just about the music for you, and for the millions of iPodists out there, but it isn’t for me. But it’s not as simple as needing a neat, pretty, and new product of some kind–that’s just a bi-product. No, it’s about needing an experience, a ritual, a visual, olfactory, and tactile representation of the music I’ve come to love–the music which has come to define me and say so much about the person I have quite carefully become. No ghost in the machine of an iPod can say more than the notes and words in the intangible wisp in the buds. No, I need artwork and smell and feel: proof that this music exists.
And now, six months into being a vinyl guy, I’m beginning to think that CDs aren’t good enough either (or that they’re too good.)
With vinyl, you rarely get liner notes, or much of any recognition from the artist at all. What you get, typically, are one or two big pictures of some kind, or a thematic artwork. The cerebral heavy-lifting that came with some CDs is erased, and replaced with an immediate, often striking, visual statement of the music you are about to hear. It’s much more guttural, and exactly what I needed in this content-saturated media blitz of a culture.
My vinyl copy of My Morning Jacket's album "Z" beside my CD copy of Deerhunter's "Microcastles" (because I couldn't find my CD copy of "Z")
The same vinyl and CD opened up. Which one would you rather own for the rest of your life?
Aside from the artwork, and plain cool size, of vinyl, there’s another element that really changes the way I listen to music, and that is the anti-portability of vinyl. With first cassette tapes (and the Walkman), then CDs and now digital music, listening to your favorite songs has become more and more portable, to the point that listening to music is now practically more convenient when you’re on the move. You do it while you’re doing other things. You do it when you’re distracted, when you’re going to or coming from work, when you’re exercising, when you run the vaccuum. The soul-searching, the connecting with the artist, the stationary, elemental, prosaic human face of music is disappearing; and I don’t say this because I’m old, or unhip, or resistant to change. This has got to be a true thing.
You’re so warm…oh, the ritual,
when I lay down your crooked arm!
–“Spin the Black Circle”, Pearl Jam
Vinyl practically forces you to be doing nothing but listening to music. Sure, you can clean your house, or read a book, but you’d better also pay some attention to the music, because you’ve got to get up and flip the record after a few songs. You sure as shit can’t do your workout when you’re listening to vinyl, because you’ll skip that record like crazy and scratch it. And, as I have found, if you get a nice rare vinyl, you can even turn it into a social event. Music lovers will actually come to your house to listen to it, and we can have a social event over a record. Think about that.
I don’t even give a shit about the supposedly amazing sound quality of vinyl. I’m no audiophile; I couldn’t pick out a FLAC file from an MP3 in a lineup; I just need to hear the chords and words. Besides, I still have crappy speakers.
Nobody understands the economic concept of “futures”.
Chinese food delivery men are the nicest delivery men.
Stephen King’s best days are behind him.
The best Stephen King film adaptation is “The Shawshank Redemption”. The best horror film adaption of King’s is “Misery”, unless you categorize that as Suspense, in which case the best horror adaptation is “It”.
The best color is green.
Foreign money always looks weird.
Vinyl is better than CDs.
Daylight Savings Time is stupid.
Ten things that are “masterpieces”:
1. Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Oddysey”.
2. Tupac’s “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.”
3. Dave Eggers’ “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius”
4. Carnivale 5. Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs”
6. Roy Thomas’ 1992 run on Dr. Strange 7. Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself 8. Picasso’s “Guernica”
9. Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”
10. Any “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live featuring Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon
Ten things often mistaken for “masterpieces”.
1. Stanely Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove”
2. Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”
3. Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections”
4. Twin Peaks 5. Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction”
6. Chris Claremont’s Days of Future Past 7. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl 8. Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”
9. August Wilson’s “Fences”
10. Gilda Radner on “Weekend Update”
Cherry is by far the best wood for furniture.
Al Gore would have made a fine president.
Philip Larkin is the best British poet ever.
Pink Floyd does have a masterpiece, and it is of course “Echoes”.
Three languages that are attractive:
1. French
2. English
3. Russian
Amnesia would not be fun.
Pooping is fun.
The best ending of any book ever is the last page of The Grapes of Wrath.
Nobody really likes cigars.
Ticketmaster really is evil.
G is the most pleasing chord.
Anyone can golf.
Maya Angelou is a terrible poet.
One pair of new socks is better than three new shirts.
The best “indie rock” song ever written is Death Cab For Cutie’s “What Sarah Said”.
David Lynch movies don’t make sense, and it isn’t admirable, either. Even “Dune”.
Sleeping more than 9 hours is bad. So is less than 5.
Haircuts are a waste of money.
The five best Johnny Depp movies are, in order:
1. Dead Man
2. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
4. The Libertine
5. From Hell
Notes From the Fire 